The Dove’s Kinswoman

The dove brought rest to Noah,
And the dove’s kinswoman Mary
with good oil instead of a leaf,
poured out the symbols of the Son’s rest.
– St. Ephraim

In a discussion of the Chrism Mass, Jack Rakosky suggested that the most appropriate reading would be the anointing at Bethany. This is something I have believed for many years, and it thrilled me to see his suggestion. In fact, I follow this blog in order to understand how liturgists think about the gospel and try to enact it, always with an eye to understanding the story of the anointing better.

Mary anoints the feet of Jesus. Sculpture. From Heiligenkreuz Abbey. Photo: Rita Ferrone, April 2011.
Mary anoints the feet of Jesus. Sculpture. From Heiligenkreuz Abbey, Austria. Photo: Rita Ferrone, April 2011.

The significance of the anointing at Bethany struck me when I read Raymond Brown’s summary statement on St. Mark’s gospel:

Readers can learn much about Jesus from the traditions of his parables and mighty deeds; but unless that is intimately combined with the picture of his victory through suffering, they cannot understand him or the vocation of his followers.

The anointing at Bethany epitomizes this message, as the woman anoints Jesus at the end of his ministry of “parables and mighty deeds” and he reinterprets the anointing as for his coming burial. It is the final pivotal point as the gospel turns to the Passion. Nowhere is the suffering of Jesus more intimately connected with his life of parables and mighty deeds.

St. John, with a very different theology, also uses the anointing as the pivot of his gospel. Mary anoints Jesus as a response to the raising of her brother Lazarus, the last of the signs that make up the first half of the gospel. The anointing also prepares Jesus for his glorification in the second half. It is the anointed Jesus who is welcomed into Jerusalem; he imitates her action when He washes the feet of the disciples; and of course, Jesus dies and is buried, fulfilling that meaning of the anointing.

Despite the prominence these evangelists give to this story, exegetes rarely treat it as important. I did not expect to find it featured prominently by liturgists. But I found some glaring gaps into which this story fits easily. The Chrism Mass is celebrated two days before Easter, which parallels the anointing two days before the Passover. In the morning the bishop could preach to his priests about the anointing of Jesus, and in the evening those priests preach to their people about Jesus copying the position of the woman to wash his disciples’ feet. Rather than a Chrism Mass with a pragmatic timing and purpose, it would be part of reenacting the gospels and preparing us for the death and Resurrection of Jesus.

There is an even larger hole gaping in the sacraments.  As a prayer for healing, the anointing of the sick is a powerful sacrament, but as a reenactment of the anointing Jesus received before he suffered, it becomes a more resonant sign of the value of suffering. The oil of catechumens becomes a preparation to be buried with Christ in Baptism. By giving the Holy Chrism roots in Scripture, we take a step toward finding for Confirmation the theology many have sought. The love the woman expresses by anointing Jesus is the love we feel for our children and for those who join our Church. It is stronger than death. And by being anointed as Christ was anointed, we become a part of the Body of the Anointed, able to exercise the authority of Christ by prophetically speaking Christ’s love, by royally choosing to love, and by offering our lives as he did.

There is much more to this story than has generally been acknowledged. The ideas here but skim the surface of the issues in exegesis, the sacraments, Christology, women, etc. But even if I am wrong about everything I say, I hope that you will give greater consideration to what this woman did. Wherever in all the world the gospel is proclaimed, what she has done will be told in memory of her.

Jim McKay

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Comments

22 responses to “The Dove’s Kinswoman”

  1. Tom Poelker

    Thank you for these thoughts.
    These are valuable insights which, not having heard before, I will try not to forget.

    OTOH, my main interest in Confirmation is to restore the initiation sequence of bathing, anointing, communing, which I think means changing the catechesis of Confirmation/Chrismation in a very different way.

    Reply
    1. Jim McKay

      In the gospels of Matthew Mark and John, the anointing immediately precedes the Last Supper. That, for me, is reason enough for an initiation by anointing to precede communion.

      But if you want a theological rationale, I think it would go like this: Anointing, as Tertullian remarked, is a continuation of the practice of anointing the kings and priests of Israel. This core meaning is the reason for the sequence: anointing establishes a person as a ‘priest’ who offers sacrifice, so it naturally precedes communion in that sacrifice.

      How would your changes to chrismation that would conflict with this? Or alternatively, what changes do you think would go with this reading of the anointing at Bethany?

      Reply
  2. Jack Rakosky

    Thanks, Jim, for developing this idea in a deeper and more far reaching manner. I like ideas better than doing hard work. In the mental health system I kept my job because people developed ideas better than I after I became the catalyst for their experience.

    Rahner has an article on himself as an “amateur” philosopher, given to an association of philosophers. While valuing academic scholarship and its rigorous if narrow focus, Rahner claims that scholarship that will be of service to the broader world has to have a certain “amateur” quality about it, a willingness to risk the unknown, to transcend disciplinary boundaries.

    Today in the theological sciences (like biblical and liturgical studies) and the social sciences (like psychology, sociology, and economics) there is an enormously expanding literature that analyzes the details, but very little that takes the risks of putting it together in helpful ways in dialog with people outside the disciplines (even scholars of other disciplines).

    One of the key things that attracted me to PrayTell was its opening announcement which drew upon Worship’s opening announcement “Many and varied interests meet in the liturgy. … There are the literary, musical, artistic, even ethnological and archeological aspects, all of which are worth fostering… [But these are] always in subordination to the more fundamental aspect, that of the spiritual import, which is its true essential nature” I interpreted these words as expressing not only a multi-disciplinary approach but also one that emphasized spirituality, the importance of lived Christian life.

    Overall the blog has kept a remarkable diversity and high quality in its posts and its comments. It is encouraging that more of those who comment are participating in the leadership of posting. My wish everyday is to hear in posts and comments from more people with more diverse backgrounds and experiences, professional and amateur, who love liturgy.

    Reply
    1. Jim McKay

      Thank you, for spurring me to express these things. I normally listen, and try to understand and help others express themselves. It seemed appropriate to add on to your insight.

      I am still grappling with Paul Ford’s remarks on the Chrism Mass, which offer his experience of it as “transtemporal.” It is an intriguing insight, and even though I have framed some of my remarks in contrast to it, I think there is a reconciliation of the two somewhere out there.

      Like you, I hope to hear more of the different approaches on this and other issues. Not just the contests and wrangling, but the values and ideas that underpin them.

      Reply
  3. Paul F Ford

    Thanks, Jim and Jack, for your reflections, especially for the Ephrem passage. I think you’ve made an great argument for retaining in Holy Week the story of the anointing of Jesus. I’m just not yet convinced that it is as all-inclusive of the Chrism-mystery as the Isaiah 61-Psalm 89-Revelation 1-Luke 4-Psalm 45 dynamic.

    Let’s keep the conversation going . . .

    Reply
    1. Jim McKay

      No fair! You have a thousand year head start on choosing readings. I probably would go with Is 51: 1-7 and 2 Cor 4:5-12. I think the current readings are good as well. They reflect St Luke’s version, not the the others who pair the story with the Last Supper.

      This is a major problem with the idea. I think the consecration of the Chrism grew out of the anointing at Bethany, but the Chrism Mass has grown away from it. The holy oils have declined in significance over the last 1,000 years, and with them the Chrism Mass has faded. The Patriarch in Constantinople does it when needed, about every ten years, and he does it for something like all the Orthodox in the world, so very few people experience it. So why did it fade? Is that a legitimate development?

      St Ephrem sings extensively on the oils in the Hymns on Virginity 4-8. In 4 he continues the verse:
      The oil jar she poured out on Him
      emptied out a treasure of type on Him.
      In that moment
      the symbols of oil took shelter in the Anointed.

      Reply
  4. Rita Ferrone

    Thank you for drawing attention to this nexus of biblical and theological content concerning anointing.

    I’ve belatedly added a photo of an arresting artwork I saw in a Cistercian abbey during my recent trip to Austria. It is one of a pair of sculptures, one on each side of a corridor. This one is of Mary anointing the feet of Jesus. The one opposite is of Jesus washing the feet of Peter.

    The one problem I have with the scheme offered in the post is that it seems to me to assume a rememorative piety concerning events surrounding the passion. Over the centuries, this approach (also known as historicization) has grown so popular that it has at times supplanted the older, valuable sense of present and future orientation in the liturgy. While a rememorative approach has produced some genuine fruit, it is in the end more devotional than liturgical.

    What I think is an important question, which the post does open, yet which needs more exploration, is how does this scriptural event invite us into the mystery of Christ present and coming. I very much appreciate the comments on initiatory anointing, and this avenue is one I would like to see further explored.

    Reply
  5. Jim McKay

    Thanks Rita, for the picture. The matching washing the feet of Peter can be seen at http://www.stift-heiligenkreuz.org/Bildergalerie/Galerie-1/05-Kreuzgang/slides/Heiligenkreuz_Kreuzgang-Fusswaschung-Giuliani.html #15 has a picture of the corridor, but no sign of Bethany.

    I am careful to avoid historicizing, but I do emphasize the gospels and the Gospel. My primary interest is Scrpture and it’s influence on liturgy, and vice versa, and that may seem ‘historical.’ But I really am more interested in structural and literary comparisons to help understand how the Gospel is presented.

    May I suggest my post on the Lazarus gospel, Mary sat at home, for an example of illuminating the mystery of Christ present and coming? We do not hear of Mary, but she will rise again with her brother, with Jesus, with us, and at the end of time.

    Reply
  6. Jack Rakosky

    I do not see Jim’s approach as historicism.

    My approach is sociological rather than historical (if historical = event narrative).

    When Mark has Jesus interacting with the establishment groups in Jerusalem (Pharisees, Sadducees, Scribes, Priests) before his death, I hear Mark speaking the “sociological” truth that Jesus caused concerns and controversy among the religious establishments, and had little support there that might have prevented his death. I doubt these events took place immediately before His death, or even in the Temple. Mark puts them there to help us understand why Jesus died.

    Mark places women as servants at the beginning and end of the public ministry and Jesus as servant of all in the center. The literary form tells us what we need to know. Historical events are very secondary, perhaps staged. The text tells us more about theology, even sociology than about events. Mark understood the “sociological” truth that women were the better servant leaders during the ministry of Jesus, and in the early Church. We can still see this truth in the important roles played by woman religious and women volunteers today.

    At the beginning of Mark, Jesus calls pairs of brothers from their fishing business, then has them together in Peter’s house (which is becoming the house of Jesus) on the other side of the literary sandwich which has Jesus teaching in the Synagogue. Reading this sociologically I see a snapshot of the Jesus movement forming in households around the Synagogue, families coming together into the larger “brethren” of Jesus. Again historical events are far less important (and maybe staged by the author) than the literary form and its “sociological” and theological truths.

    The anointing of Jesus is not just some historical event among a sequence of events. I look first for its place in the literary structure, then how it fits in with the rest of Mark, then ask what it means sociologically, finally theologically.

    Reply
    1. Rita Ferrone

      There is a confusion of terminology here. Historicism is not the same as historicization. The latter is a term used in liturgical studies to describe a shift in understanding of the nature of the rites of Holy Week which began as early as the time of Egeria with the rage in Western Europe to visit the “holy places” vicariously, through the liturgy. This is not the same as historicism. It means, rather, that the liturgical events began to be seen as having a one-to-one correspondance with specific events of the passion. This movement, which coincided with the decline and eventual collapse of the catechumenate, eventually led to the engagement with Holy Week as something of a sacred drama, like the passion plays. The further development of this movement is found in the middle ages, and has continued to the present. It accounts for additions, such as having an effigy of Jesus in the tomb displayed on Holy Saturday.

      Kenneth Stevenson speaks of a commemorative piety moving to a rememorative piety, both of which are subsequent to the oldest sense of the liturgy being an enactment of Christ’s present action, and anticipation of his future coming. Eschatological awareness and urgency of contemporaneous transformations gradually drops back and sometimes out altogether, as the shift moves further toward devout review of past events for the spiritual edification of those who attend.

      Reply
      1. Jim McKay

        I do not see how you avoid this kind of historicism when you have phrases like “in memory of me” and “in memory of her” in your text. You may not be able to avoid it if you have any kind of text, but particularly a narrative text. Transformation is almost always expressed narratively, and the elements of the narrative are constitutive of the transformation. While I can see a problem when the narrative is used to distance people from transformation, that is still better than having no sense of time and change.

        But I am someone who starts with the Gospel, and seeks understanding of it in the narrative gospels and in the liturgy. I find it hard to imagine another approach. And the example you offer from Stevenson seems historicist to me, though his narrative is how the liturgy changed rather than the life of Christ. I have my doubts about the commemorative nature of the early liturgy vs. a later rememorative one.

        I suppose the question is how do you relate the Gospel to the liturgy in a commemorative, non-rememorative context? In this particular setting, how do you address those with long experience (priests at the Chrism Mass) so that they are not only transformed, but are able to facilitate the transformation of neophytes? Memory and narrative seem like the only way to deal with such complexity.

      2. Rita Ferrone

        Here is a link for Kenneth Stevenson’s excellent book.

        http://www.abebooks.com/9780912405537/Jerusalem-Revisited-Liturgical-Meaning-Holy-0912405538/plp

      3. Jack Rakosky

        Oh, you are talking about the use of history in the liturgy not scripture, Rita!

        One of the reasons I love and use the Byzantine Divine Office (with its Gloria and Alleluia during Lent) is the tendency of the Roman Rite to pretend that the incarnation has not yet happened during Advent, and that Christ has not yet risen during Lent, and that after a brief appearance of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost that we are during Ordinary Time stuck in the public ministry of Jesus with the Passion, Death, Resurrection and Pentecost on the far distant horizon. If that is the use of history in the liturgy that you are against, then we are in agreement.

        However I have tended to think of this problem as a Western desire to analyze and take things apart, e.g. the idea feasts (Trinity, Corpus Christi, Christ the King) in contrast to the Byzantine tendency to synthesize and bring things together.

        A desire to bring things together was the précis reason for my original lament that a Gospel of the Anointing was not in the Chrism Mass. I really don’t care when the Chrism Mass is celebrated.

        At the Theophany (Baptism of Christ) the Byzantine Liturgy sings antiphons like “A servant baptized our Redeemer” “The streams of the Jordan received You, their source”, “He Who bowed the heavens now bows His head.” “You bowed Your head before the Forerunner and crushed the heads of the dragons.” “What wonder, to look down in the river and see the Maker of heaven and earth standing naked. Like a servant at the hands of a servant he accepts to be baptized for our salvation.” As so often the Byzantine Liturgy is very comfortable with a very high Christology and Jesus as servant.

        Obviously, the woman anointing Jesus is a direct parallel to John baptizing Jesus. Jesus sanctifies the oil just as he sanctifies the water. However the manner in which he does both is by submitting himself to the servants of God. Not very clerical.

      4. Jim McKay

        Rita, thanks for the book recommendation. I just finished reading it, and it is a delightful and informative discussion of Holy Week.

        So now, let me turn your remarks upside down. The Chrism mass goes back to at least the 5th century, a period when historicism flourished. Is it likely that it was created apart from that trend? Or did it reflect that trend?

        Stevenson, in company with most, sees the Chrism Mass as a “functional adjunct” rather than as an event with roots in the Gospel or in history. I believe this is what Paul Ford meant when he called it “transtemporal.” It meaning is rooted in eternity, but its meaning is not rooted in time/history.

        Would such a rootless rite arise in the years following St Helena’s trip to find the Cross in Jerusalem? Or in the wake of the Holy Week Egeria experienced? This unrooted quality seems like it belongs with a later era, when the oils themselves are questioned by Reformers and their sacramental use is ‘in search of a theology.” If that rootlessness existed in the fifth century, would a Chrism Mass have come to exist?

        So I an suggesting an alternative, that the root existed, but has been forgotten. Exegetes have not given much weight to the anointing at Bethany, but that is imo a mistake. It is an essential, meaningful part of the gospels that liturgists may have historicized as the Chrism Mass.

  7. Jack Rakosky

    “While a rememorative approach has produced some genuine fruit, it is in the end more devotional than liturgical.”

    Maybe devotional is the way to recognize Gospel values?

    My interest is in Christian voluntarism in both church and society. I find Greenleaf’s book on Servant Leadership very helpful. Christian volunteers need their own network (independent of churches and nonprofits) to help support and encourage one another.

    In such a network, the anointing of Jesus, the servant of all, might be remembered by an annual celebration of Servant Leadership, in which some volunteers as servant leaders would anoint the feet other volunteers affirming them as servant leaders.

    Although Mark has the woman anointing the head of Jesus, John says the feet. Anointing of the feet seems more appropriate to servant leadership than the anointing of heads.

    I would emphasize oil as the symbol of love, of communal life over flowing with diving blessing (Psa 133); and personal love (Your name spoken is a spreading perfume- that is why the maidens love you .Song of Songs 1:3). I would avoid any blessing prayer over the oil; there is none in the Gospel story. I would avoid any idea of initiation, that the oil creates rather than celebrates servant leaders.

    In the Roman Rite, devotions have often made up for what was lacking in the liturgy. In the Eastern Rites, as Taft was fond of remarking, they do not have that problem because they incorporated devotions into the liturgy. So maybe this devotional idea is a path forward.

    The Chrism Mass is remote from my life as it probably is for 99% of Catholics. In the past 20 years I have been to only one Mass celebrated by the bishop and that was for an international symposium held here. The CM sounds like a celebration of clericalism despite Paul’s attempts to put a better face on it. Bishops have a long way to go before they can be seen as servant leaders or valuing children as in the Gospel of Mark.

    Reply
    1. Jim McKay

      Jack, I think you have described an ad hoc use of oil that is already available to you. I can probably come up with a list of books that have rites for just this kind of use outside of church structures.

      What is more interesting to me is if others have done this before. Are we now dealing with the remnants of that kind of system in our sacramental, clerical system? Did ordination begin as a recognition of “servant Leadership”? Can the anointing at Bethany be used to facilitate a return to that use from our present clericalized system?

      At Bethany, the anointing has a dual meaning; it honors Jesus, and is a symbol of his coming burial. These two diverging concepts are similar to the oxymoronic tension in “servant leadership.” It is a fundamental Christian tension, prominent in St Mark’s gospel and possibly the start of articulating the dual natures in one person. Insisting on that union of two natures, rather than accepting our usually univocal understanding of “Messiah” and other anointing terminology, is the groundwork for alleviating clericalism from within our present system.

      Reply
      1. Jack Rakosky

        On Servant Leadership:

        Greenleaf made this idea visible in the management and inspirational literature. He was not interested in abstract theory but built his insights around his experience at AT&T as a “student of organization.” He deliberately wrote in ways that did not invite systematization, to “point, and put your hand over your mouth” in his words.

        His wonderful book of insights has been badly used by religious leaders to advocate humility and compliance in people, giving them hope that they might be recognized as servant leaders. This fosters competition for the favor of the pastor (and the pastor’s associates), a bane of parishes and congregations.

        Leadership is commonly defined among social scientists as person A influencing person B to think, feel or act in some way desired by A. This contrasts with managing i.e. control of people and resources by position and coercion, and with the Church concept of Office. Managers and office holders are leaders to the extent that they use influence rather than control.

        In the two person situation, Person A leads by influence only if Person B agrees to follow. So leadership and discipleship are two sides of the same coin. Greenleaf understood this well. He thought following only servant leaders was just as important as being a servant leader.

        In understanding Mark on servant leadership “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.(Mar 9:35 NIV)” I put the emphasis on being servant of all.

        As an organization planner, I promoted a “marketing” approach for organizations, programs and employees. All life is a series of exchanges of time, money, and resources. People and programs should ask what they can do to serve (to better the lives) of everyone in the exchange including all stakeholders such as workers and the public. Being humble is easy in comparison to being the servant of everyone around, a great challenge, requiring listening, creativity, etc.

  8. Tom Poelker

    1. Can commenters please write about the qualities of the oil and how they have been happy to see it applied. I have heard many people over the years complain about the “little dab will do you” application of oil and call for generous use of this sign. I do not think I have ever seen such done. Oil running down over the head does not seem to sit well in our culture. OTOH, I have not liked the suggestion to substitute hand lotion on the theory of that is one kind of oil and one place on the body that modern Americans are accustomed to doing something resembling actual anointing.

    Do we need oils which have more the consistency of petroleum jelly? Do we need an application method which involves spreading around and rubbing in, sort of like sun tan lotion?

    What has worked for others in terms of making this a richer symbol in terms of the nature of the oil itself and the nature of the application?

    Reply
    1. Rita Ferrone

      Tom, it’s unfortunate that LTP no longer prints the video This Is the Night, in which you can see Fr. Don Neuman use oil in an abundant manner, in his parish in Texas. Many people have copies of that video, however. You might check in your parish religious ed office or diocesan catechumenate office to see if there is one around. I know many pastors who use a palm-full of oil, or pour the oil on the head of the one being anointed, in confirmation.

      There is also the manner in which the oil is presented and handled. If it comes on a cotton swab in a pillbox-sized container on a little tray, it conveys nothing of its natural symbolism to the assembly. Although it’s not primarily something seen, but rather something felt and smelled, still, what we see should look like oil. For this reason, I like to see the oil poured.

      Reply
    2. Jim McKay

      My previous pastor was generous with the oil with mixed results. I loved seeing it, but some were annoyed by it because of their hair or clothes, others did not like the skull, though some really appreciated the gesture. Maybe we need to reinstate the chrisom, the cloth that catches the flowing chrism so it does not run down the face. (or the beards of Moses and Aaron?) It used to be worn for the whole of Easter week, but that will not happen in most modern settings.

      There are other times for anointing other parts of the body, but chrism is for the crown — chrism is a crown –or at least the forehead.

      Reply
  9. Tom Poelker

    2. How do we deal with the above idea of oil, foot washing, and servant leadership in the light of oil, initiation, royal dominion for David and kings down to the present day?

    Reply
    1. Jim McKay

      Tom,

      I have pondered this for years, without coming up with an answer.

      Get the bishops to follow the rubric for the Chrism Mass that Paul Ford cited last week: “the Bishop preaches… to his Priests about priestly anointing.” A good example is here: It is, of course, good to remember that all baptized people are priests. This may surprise you because when you think of priests you think of men who dress in black suits and white collars and preside at Mass. All of you are priests because through baptism you share in the life and love of Jesus Christ and therefore in His ministry and mission.

      And then there is the question of women. JP2 has made the absence of women from the Last Supper a theological fact, and that needs to be balanced by consideration of the presence of women. I like Do What You Have The Power To Do for its bible studies with ritual.

      Reply

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